The present invention relates to trucks for collecting refuse, and, more particularly, to trucks for separately collecting and transporting recyclable materials.
In recent years, many communities and states have developed programs for segregation and collection of recyclable materials so as to minimize consumption of natural resources and exhaustion of landfills. In a number of states and communities, programs for recycling have been mandated, and there has been an increase in need for refuse collection trucks which would permit expeditious pick-up and temporary segregated storage of the recyclable materials, and ultimate discharge at collection centers maintained by the community.
To achieve this result, various mechanisms have been proposed for addition to refuse trucks to segregate the collected recyclable materials and ultimately to discharge such materials. Unfortunately, many of the proposed mechanisms have been relatively complicated and expensive to build and to operate. Still others have required a high degree of handling by the operator of the materials both in loading the materials onto the truck and thereafter in removing the materials from the truck at the municipal collection site.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel truck for expeditiously collecting, storing in segregated areas, and discharging a variety of recyclable materials.
It is also an object to provide such a truck which may be fabricated readily from rugged materials to provide a long lived structure.
Another object is to provide such a truck in which the operator may readily and separately store the collected recyclables in compartments within the truck and separately discharge the materials from the compartments into storage containers at the municipal collection site with a minimum of handling.
Still another object is to provide such a truck incorporating an internal compartmental structure which may be adjusted to suit the needs of a particular community or of a particular collection route.
A further object is to provide a novel method for rapidly and easily collecting, storing and discharging recyclable materials at collection centers.